Should teachers use Facebook to air their disagreements with parents? When does a teacher’s right to free speech cross the line? The growing use of social networking sites by teachers, parents and students raises some thorny questions.
A case in point is the slugfest going on in Havre de Grace over the controversial drama production known as Drama Therapy.
To review:
Drama Therapy was developed four years ago by teachers and guidance counselors at Havre de Grace High School as a series of short skits that are part drama, part therapy, and mainly written by students. The skits deal with serious issues facing some teens, such as suicide, incest and abortion, but they also include more light-hearted fare. The founders of Drama Therapy expected that some students would seek counseling as a result of seeing the skits. The idea was to help those students.
The skits comprising Drama Therapy changed each year, but somehow ...Continue Reading
Former NFL wide receiver Qadry Ismail, who played three seasons with the Baltimore Ravens and was a member of their Super Bowl XXXV championship team, has been hired as the new men’s track coach at Patterson Mill High School in Bel Air.
Ismail, 39, retired from the NFL following the 2002 season, which he played with the Indianapolis Colts. Ismail has lived in Harford County for several years.
Ismail has been working with the team since their season began March 1, according to Jason Bellamy, Patterson Mill’s athletic director. Bellamy said Ismail has been fully involved with the team and their practices so far.
“That’s what’s been great about him,” said Bellamy, who is in his first year as Patterson Mill’s AD. “He’s out there every day, he’s all about working with the kids.
Bellamy said the school approached Ismail to serve as coach.
“I don’t remember how exactly it came about, but we were ...Continue Reading
The decision whether to renovate the Town of Bel Air’s aging building on Hickory Avenue or move town hall to a new location was one of the keystone issues of last fall’s town election. Now, there may be an answer.
The former BB&T Bank building on Main Street in Bel Air is “under contract”, according to the real estate firm handling its sale, and a source close to the deal told The Dagger that the town is the buyer and will move its administrative offices and meeting space to that location.
The former BB&T building is currently under contract, according to Donnell “Beetle” Smith of RKS Realty. However, Smith declined to identify the prospective buyer, saying only that the transaction was in a study period expected to last through mid-April. Following that period, Smith said he expects the deal to move to settlement in mid-May.
Just four months after he was re-elected as a Bel Air Town Commissioner, Robert Preston filed to run for the county’s Register of Wills position on Wednesday, joining a crowded GOP primary field.
Preston has served as a Bel Air Town Commissioner since 2002, and said he first mulled a candidacy for the position in 2006, when longtime Democratic incumbent Harry Hopkins initially decided not to run again. But then Hopkins changed his mind—and his political party affiliation—to win a sixth term, and Preston decided to wait.
“I decided to do this probably six years ago,” Preston told The Dagger. “I think that was when I went up and talked to Harry, that was when he had decided not to run. Then he decided to run again, and change parties.”
“I’ve had a lot of time to think about it, and decided it was time to step up and run for the office,” ...Continue Reading
Each month the Harford County Health Department conducts routine inspections of 1,893 food service facilities. Some pass, some fail. These are their stories…
Below are all the critical health inspection violations for Harford County in February 2010:
7-Eleven Store #11614
911 Ontario Street
Havre de Grace, MD 21078
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper hot temperature.
7-Eleven Store #11629
806 Conowingo Road
Bel Air, MD 21014
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper cold temperature.
7-Eleven Store #11630
602 South Philadelphia Blvd.
Aberdeen, MD 21001
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper hot temperature.
Bulle Rock
320 Blenheim Lane
Havre de Grace, MD 21078
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must be held at proper temperature. Food must be held at proper cold temperature.
Chili’s Grill & Bar
502 Baltimore Pike
Bel Air, MD 21014
Violation: Potentially hazardous food must ...Continue Reading
Thanks to his last name, Register of Wills candidate Derek Hopkins sounds as if he has a strong connection to the office of longtime incumbent Harry L.W. Hopkins. Though the two men are not related, the younger Hopkins does have a family member in that office: his wife, Katrina.
Hopkins’ wife is a 12-year veteran of the Maryland State Court System; according to him, she spent 10 years in the civil division under the Clerk of the Circuit Court, and has worked in Harry Hopkins’ office for more than two years. Hopkins plans to retire after serving six terms as Register of Wills, and is not running for the position again.
Recent comments on The Dagger indicated that Hopkins’ wife would leave her job in the event he is elected, to avoid a conflict of interest. Hopkins confirmed those comments, saying the potential family job-switch has been the plan since last summer.
Welcome to the first installment of a new Dagger feature, where we chronicle some of the happenings surrounding Harford’s upcoming November 2010 election.
We’ll be tracking news stories, campaign events, election issues, election controversies, and a dash of heard-on-the-street rumor. We’ll be working to report and confirm as much news as possible ourselves, but we won’t be afraid to pull from the occasional outside source if they’ve got a good item.
The season is just getting underway and the hopefuls are only now coming to light, so the news is pretty sparse at the moment.
–Sen. Barbara Mikulski and Rep. Frank Kratovil were in Harford today (Thursday) to announce $750,000 in federal funds for Harford’s public safety communications technology infrastructure enhancement project. The announcement was made at Harford County’s Emergency Operations Center alongside County Executive David Craig and EOC staff.
The cash will go toward upgrading the communications system used by Harford ...Continue Reading
Havre de Grace police are used to fielding calls when strange things are found floating down the river or in the bay.
On Saturday, those calls poured in to the police department in droves as residents of the waterside city reported seeing a strange creature paddling in the waters where the mouth of the Susquehanna River meets the top of the Chesapeake Bay.
This wasn’t a dusky shark, like the one once caught by a fisherman off the Promenade, or an Atlantic sturgeon, like the 8-foot long specimen that once washed up on the shore at Rock Run, or even Chessie, the mythic, serpentine Chesapeake Bay sea monster.
It was a manatee, also known as a sea cow, evidently on tour from Florida and drawn by curiousity and warming water into the upper reaches of the Chesapeake Bay.
A Havre de Grace police officer was able to take photos and video of the manatee ...Continue Reading
A transformer will be passing through Harford County in the near future and this one is no toy. Weighing in at 481,000 pounds and belonging to Exelon Corporation, the first of seven new transformers bound for the company’s Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station in Delta, PA will be hauled on Harford County roads over six nights, beginning sometime in late July.
A 16-foot-wide trailer carrying the transformer will have a 27-foot-high load, resulting in a total shipping weight of 831,724 pounds that will roll along at the snail-like pace of 3 to 5 mph. The trailer will be accompanied by a motor escort composed of law enforcement vehicles, road construction crews and utility trucks. The entire road trip is expected to take one week, including the six nights in Harford County and one day in Pennsylvania. An exact starting date has not been set by the company.
Harford County Public Schools has a little gem of a high school once known to locals as Votech, but now called Harford Technical High School. As it stands today, the school is both a credit and a reproach to the management of Harford County Public Schools.
Like every other public high school in Harford County, Harford Tech includes a college prep program. But the school is unique in providing its students with the opportunity to explore several technical/vocational fields before choosing one to study in depth. Examples of the nineteen programs offered at Harford Tech include plumbing, welding, cosmetology, floral design, food service, computer-aided design, health occupations and printing/graphic communications. Many lead to industry certification in their respective fields.
Harford Tech is also the only magnet school in Harford County. Instead of serving students who live within a set attendance area, kids from all over the county apply for ...Continue Reading
